The Bunch Quarantine Week 2

Happy 14th Birthday L!

It has finally stopped raining! Thank God! We have roughly 4 days of sun and wind to dry things up before the next storm arrives. Our yard actually squishes with every step WE take. The horse pen is horrendous. In fact the horse, Iris, strained her leg sliding around in it so we have had to stall her until the yard dries out enough to give her some traction. I am hopeful that by tonight or tomorrow it will have dried out enough to let her loose. We are going through a ton of chips for the stall and mucking it out twice a day is really time consuming, not to mention disgusting since we have to slop through all the mud to clean it out. Unfortunately, Iris had plenty of time for a good old fashioned mud bath before we locked her up. She literally had chunks of mud balls stuck all in her mane. We have black clay so once the mud dries it basically has the consistency of rocks. It was so bad I had to cut them out of her mane. She now has what we are referring to as the equine mullet. We can't stop laughing at her. I think she is feeling a little self conscious, but she just looks so goofy. Gwen is missing her buddy. She will stand outside of the stall, just to be close to Iris. At least she was until the sun came out. Now she is grazing and doing what she wants while Iris goes crazy with jealously.

The equine mullet.

Go ahead and laugh.

We also did the unthinkable. At least what D and I deemed unthinkable. We swore no more animals. We plan on traveling full time in about 7-8 years so we are just letting our current animal population die off without replacing them. However, no one planned for this current pandemic. We decided to get more hens just in case we need more eggs. We have 6 new babies, which once again is making my house sound like outside.

So cute!

They sleep in one big sleep pile.

They absolutely love new chicks...keeps them busy for awhile.

Finally, they are checking out their new digs. Their heat lamp is red so pardon the pic quality.

These are the youngest chickens we have ever had. They are only about 3 days old and are so little and cute. I hope they are all girls! They are still in the nap most of the day stage (just like real babies). However, the never stop chirping stage is coming soon. They have to stay inside for about 8 weeks and then we can move them outdoors, just not with the big girls until they are at least 4 months old. They have to be about the same size as the older hens or they will get pecked to death. The kids are super excited; they love new baby chicks and yes L is already rocking with them while she watches tv. T named his 2 Elvis and Presley (of course), L named hers Charity and Gabriella, and A named hers Cybil and Edith. I can only assume the girls named their chicks after High School Musical characters since that is what they are really into right now.

The only time we have left the house in the past couple of weeks was to go check on my parents, who are finally listening to me and not going out...as much. We made sure to social distance from them while we visited. We did stop for gas on our way home, which we found for $1.39 a gallon! I made sure to use plenty of hand sanitizer after pumping gas.

I can't remember the last time I saw gas for a $1.39!

We also celebrated L's 14th birthday. We were able to go pick up donuts for breakfast and D had brought back Chick Fil A for dinner (per her request) on Sat. We also watched the Greatest Showman in HD with the surround sound on like she wanted. Usually, A and L can't use the surround sound when they watch it because T is already in bed and it would be too loud. L said she had a great birthday even if she wasn't able to celebrate with her friends and family, and she is looking forward to celebrating with everyone after virus dies down.